Lesson 1: Tones

In this lesson, you will learn about octaves and tonal steps. You need to know about these concepts because they provide the foundations for music notation.

Octaves and Tonal Steps As you may recall from science class, vibrations traveling through the air create sound. How high the pitch sounds depends on how fast the source of the sound vibrates. For example, a short or tightly-strung vibrating string will sound higher than a long or loosely-strung string. If one pitch is twice as high as a another pitch, then the pitch is said to be one octave higher. In western music, there are a total of 12 individual pitches between each octave. Each of these pitches are a tonal "half-step" apart. Two half-steps make up one "whole step." Some of these pitches can be heard in an ordinary scale.

Listen Up! Octaves The second and third pitches to sound are each an octave higher. Scales This is a C Major scale. This is a chromatic scale (all 12 pitches in the octave will sound).